New type of electronic home museum utilizing digital video databases

An evolutional concept of the digital electronic museum called an electronic home museum (EHM) has been proposed and a prototype of the proposed system has been developed. The system has been developed based on the integrated technologies of the computer systems, communication networks, and consumer electronics. An extended use of a set of directories is one of the remarkable features of the system. It enables the system to easily link to other museums to manage multimedia data effectively, and to let the user to access from his/her home through various types of communication networks. The prototype of the system has been applied to the Hamamatsu museum for musical instruments, Hamamatsu, Japan. The features of the electronic home museum are proved to be sufficient for practical use.